William Shakespeare’s 448th birthday

William Shakespeare’s 448th birthday — today, we think — is replete with Shakespearean amounts of media commentary about his relevance to our times.

“But we have Steven Spielberg,” tweeteth everyone who is tired of hearing about why we need Shakespeare. “We. Don’t. Need. Shakespeare.”

Ah, but we do. We need Shakespeare as a lodestar for something increasingly common to our culture.

. . .With the famous exception of Richard III, Shakespeare took liberties with known facts in order to humanize, not demonize. At worst, he justified past atrocities or embarrassments; at best, and nearly always, he showed what a terrific challenge it is to be both human and heroic at once. He appropriated the past to improve it as a model for the present. Modern politicians and pundits: step up to that plate.

Texas

spirituality

spirituality

spirituality
The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realized it, he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers."
~ Evelyn Underhill

we yearn

Richard Foster
We today yearn for prayer and hide from prayer. We are attracted to it and repelled by it. We believe prayer is something we should do, even something we want to do, but it seems like a chasm stands between us and actually praying. We experience the agony of prayer-lessness.